Going to the very heart of Zen.

October 09, 2018

At some time in our early twenties it dawns on us that suffering is going to be a major part of our adult life, in fact, the real part of our life.It is a weight that we will have to bear for a long time.

But for the Buddha (then Siddhartha before he awakened and became the Buddha) suffering was even more catastrophic.Suffering also included rebirth and with it still more suffering!In other words, this life is not our first and last life.There is more to come!

Siddhartha eventually found a way to put an end to the continuation of suffering by eliminating the cause of rebirth which is one’s incessant clinging to their carnal body, a clinging which is a kind of unconscious thirst and desperation coupled with a belief that this body is who I am.

By means of dhyāna what Siddhartha arrived at went entirely beyond the carnal body in which all sentient beings are trapped; who believe that this body is who they really are.

From this Siddhartha (now the awakened one — the Buddha) could see the real truth of suffering (the first noble truth).It was our carnal body of birth that is suffering.But more importantly, it is our desire for it that is the cause or origin of our suffering which happens to be the second noble truth.

It was by means of dhyāna that Siddhartha stopped suffering.He realized that which did not suffer.This not suffering state comes in many different names in Buddhism from nirvana to the unconditioned Mind.But the bottom line, this non-suffering state is never other than unconditioned while what is conditioned is never other than suffering.

October 08, 2018

I have noticed over the years that empirical science, when it comes to the human being, is operating under the bias of third-person knowledge, looking and observing the human being from the outside to the inside.However, most of the data is from the outside.To really look at the inside of a human being one must enter the world of first-person knowledge.But so far this is impossible.As close as empirical, outside-to-inside observation can go is maybe an fMRI scan of the brain, assuming that the first-person somehow originates from brain tissue.

On the other hand, Buddhism is just the reverse.We are observing man from the inside to the outside, who lives within a bio-physical body with its senses, observing feelings, ideations, volitions and consciousness.Moreover, it is understood that we have, out of ignorance, identified with all these constituents as being our self although not one of these constituents is our self which is extra-physical.

Much of the reason that Buddhism still remains a mystery to the West is that the West treats man as a physical object whereas Buddhism treats man as an ‘inwardly dwelling, extra-physical being’, that is, a sattva, a term which has a spiritual connotation.

The difference between the two positions is striking.One imagines scientists looking at an fMRI scan of the brain, studying thecerebral cortex in the belief that the brain somehow transforms matter into consciousness.In the other, we can imagine Siddhartha sitting in meditation awakening to the very essence and truth of the universe which is Mind (G., Geist); seeing that all phenomena are configurations of Mind—configurations, that are empty, being only illusions.

In the case of morality, the Western view encourages duplicity and hypocrisy insofar as individuals are judged by certain external signs which then allows them to hide their real intentions.In Buddhism, moral behavior begins within, with one’s ability to control their sensual passions and desires, including greed and hostility.

October 03, 2018

My iMac of almost ten years could not be saved.But I was able to retrieve all my documents, many I forgot I had.I came across some of my Zen poetry where I make allusions to the absolute.I composed these back in 2014 and 2015. I wrote them for my own enjoyment because I was tired of the modern Zen crap I read.Too much modern poetry for my blood.

October 02, 2018

Is the notion of purification in Zen Buddhism to be looked at through the prism of moral behavior or is there more to this than signaling one’s pious behavior to others?

But how does purification work if it is something like moral behavior?Purification really impliesthe eradication of defilements so as to reveal an ontologically intrinsic state of purity, this being our true nature.In light of this, why should signaling one’s pious behavior matter at all?

Given that the real object of Zen training is to realize our true nature, the question follows from this is how can we realize it as long as defilements block us from seeing the face of our true nature?

We have to think of our defilements as false thinking. This means being over preoccupied with the thought producing intellect that keeps us trapped in the jungle of the conditioned world in addition to supplying us with countless excuses and rationalizations for staying in it.

If we are going remain clueless as to what it means to eradicate false thinking by just acting pious, being a good monk or nun, paying attention to correct behavior, then we have no idea what purification in Zen is all about.

Our understanding of Zen at this point is superficial.Maybe we just like to pretend.We have just become pious actors in a Zen movie who spout off Zen sayings without ever having attained the goal of Zen.

October 01, 2018

Buddha-nature is not simply raw absence, nor is it exactly emptiness which stops at the negation of the conditioned. It is positive, since it is the fundamental basis and reality of all phenomenal arisings, all of which are conditioned. In this regard, Buddha-nature is totally unconditioned yet productive as well.

Is the Buddha-nature that which is most primordial in us?As I read the literature it seems clear that it is most primordial but with the understanding that we have no way of recognizing and connecting with it since we have no way of getting behind it so as to be aware of it as an object that stands before us.In this regard with have to take the Buddha-nature on faith until at such time we can intuit it, directly, merging with it thus becoming one with it breaking out ofthe observer/observed framework which is consciousness (vijñāna).

This seems like a difficult undertaking and I would say that it is, but only for the reason that we have put a complex barrier of half-baked concepts and speculations around it.The term Buddha-nature still boils down to the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta) in contrast with the conditioned (saṃskṛta) which goes back to early Buddhism.This should also tell us that we cannot realize our Buddha-nature by going after it intellectually, that is, by means of thought which, unfortunately, we are in the habit of doing.

Zen always likes to simplify if only to remove the weeds and the tangling vines of over-thinking.Ch'an master Tsung-mi has these words to say about Buddha-nature in the Zen tradition (tsung).

[The school taught that all actions such as] the arising of mind, the movements of thought, a snapping of fingers, a sigh or a cough, or to raise the eyebrows, all the functions of the whole substance of Buddha-nature... All coveting, hatred and delusion, all acts of good and evil with their fruit of suffering and pleasure are nothing but Buddha-nature….

Here we are givena great clue but one nevertheless that eludes us.It is what I term as the ‘animative principle’ which is another name for the ātman (All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the ātman is—Mahaparinirvana Sutra).

September 30, 2018

When avidyā (fundamental ignorance of true reality) looks into the perfect, luminous mirror of the absolute, what does it see?Certainly not the luminous Mind.Does it even recognize itself (that’s a hard question)?I am inclined to believe that it doesn’t recognize itself, much less the mirror, i.e., the luminous Mind.

Taken altogether, our personal life and this world (loka) offers no escape only because they are always severely stricken by avidyā.At best, we can hope for some brief respites before we have to walk through the mine field of our passing and be reborn into another form.

We have to rely on religion to lift us out of this morass which as history tells us, doesn’t always do a very good job.Even the religion of nihilism which is the hatred of religious thought, mysticism, metaphysics, including the aesthetic of beauty, proves inadequate to the job.And yes, even Judaism, perhaps the most cunning of all religions, proves to be a failure when it hedged its bets by conceiving of a God who is both the creator of good and evil (Isaiah 45:7).

Going back in recorded history, it was Buddhism that proclaimed it had found an escape from avidyā in which avidyā covered and concealed the luminous Mind so that the cognition of it could not take place.What concealed this luminous Mind was taken by the Buddha to be our very conditioned existence that was a formation of the unconditioned luminous Mind. But how do we tell them apart?What if we pursue the wrong thing?What if we reject the unconditioned as being too nonsensical and impractical and, instead, pursue the conditioned?But isn’t this where we are right now?How do we overcome this?

In the immortal words of Plotinus, “Take away everything!”Buddhism understand that if all we know is the conditioned, then taking it away, in the time of a finger snap, what is left is the luminous Mind which is absolutely simple.We then discover our true being.

September 26, 2018

In my old age it is easy to become nostalgic which for me is a happy affection with the past when I was expanding my sudden glimpse into the mysterious Buddha-nature in 1969; what I like to call “pure Mind.”

Getting up early in the morning, seeing my breath, then walking on the cold floor barefooted to the wood burning stove is one of those many nostalgic moments.Throwing some kindling wood on the hot embers in the wood burning stove followed by some split oak wood, then waiting for the fire to heat the stove, mixing the heated air with the cold air, was still another nostalgic moment.There were many more such moments that made up my day from grinding coffee to rolling a cigarette.

At the time my aesthetic awareness found delight in all these little things.Yet, I had no electricity or running water.I even had an outhouse (a three holer) which during the spring had a few golden poppies growing alongside of it.But what I remember most is during the winter walking up to the outhouse only to find where I was going to sit was covered with a thin sheet of ice.

I was usually connected with pure Mind most of the time so that all these moments could be best described as making up what I shall call a‘Zen aesthetic’, something like looking at the full moon in the pond at night (yes, I did that too)—but not trying to grasp it, realizing where the real moon was.Just marveling at the sheer beauty of this illusion. Oh, I also recall a bullfrog and would delight in his occasional deep croaks (he lived by the spring house).

A Zen aesthetic, I should explain in a little more detail, comes after one has entered the path, beholding first hand the pure Mind which is never other than unconditioned.Couple this with one’s present body of ‘former karma’ which is totally conditioned and you’re watching a puppet show—and you are the puppet.Only the light, itself, is real not the names or the shapes. You are this pure Mind gone forth through all illusions (This is the realization of the mind of light power — Avatamsaka Sutra).

We like to think that evil just occurs all at once like some invading army that suddenly conquers us.But evil can also conquer us in an insidious way by taking countless small steps to finally dominate us.

In many examples we find ourselves bending over backwards to accommodate someone whose opinions—even their religious views—we disagree with.In a way, if we don’t push back just a little, our psychic territory has just been occupied by these people.A small step forward for evil has just won the day.And given ten or twenty years, we will have been taken over by evil.

Have you ever heard of “political correctness” or “hate speech” or “equity” as in equal outcome?How many small steps, backed by a lot of money, did it take for such, arguably, evil ideologies to invade our culture and even our own mind?This is where we are at today with a lot of brainwashed college grads who even imagine Muhammad was like the Buddha or Jesus, and not a brutal warlord who had 28 males slaves and 12 female slaves!

And once established, how long before these same evil ideologies began to enter the unlocked, back door of Buddhism?It is certainly bad enough that Buddhism has its own set of problems that it must constantly deal with such as being misconstrued as a nihilistic religion or a religion that denies a fundamental or deep self.These views, by the way, are the result of small steps taken by some Buddhists who are unaware of their nihilistic outlook on life and will continue this pattern unless they’re confronted.

September 25, 2018

In our life, many things and events, including people we’ve met at some party in college or our professor, can teach us something about Buddhism, including inspiring books (for some of us it was Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha or books by Alan Watts).And even a long hike in Yosemite can help.

All this can act to set us off in the right direction to eventually become awakened to our true nature.But foremost, we have to have our mind set upon awakening.It has to be a real and substantial goal.We can’t just be curious.It has to go much deeper than that.This means having the faith that our awakening can become a reality.Also we must have the courage to stick with our faith come hell or high water as the old saying goes.

Oh, and yes, a Zen teacher is important, but how important?If we decide to become a monk or a nun they can help us with the details such as how to wear and fold our robes and many other details many of which are external, mainly, for beginners.But what they cannot do, although as beginners we tend to believe otherwise, is pour enlightenment into us, especially, if they are not themselves enlightened.And we have no way of knowing if they are enlightened.

Really, what matters most is not the faith that we put into some popular or local teacher, hoping that they will lead us to yonder shore, but how much faith and courage we have in ourselves that by looking within we can, one day, discover our true nature. I would go so far as to say that great faith in a teacher means less faith in oneself. Not even in the so-called golden age of Zen (if there really was such a thing) were teachers all that great. Most just wanted donations according to Ta-sui (834–919). He also complains, "Although I called on more than sixty or more prominent teachers, barely one or two had great perception.”

September 23, 2018

I think I have mentioned this before or hinted, that while we can get behind our emotions and thoughts and all kinds of arisings in our mind, we cannot get behind their source.For example, when we speak or think the source of our speaking and thinking is closed off to us.Words and thoughts just come forth, mysteriously.What is more, we take all this for granted.It seems quite natural to us.

But in the activity of generating all this we easily become attached to what has been generated and forget about the more complex matter of this source from whence it all arises which shows not the slightest trace of, itself, arising.It seems that all these arisings that are happening in our mind, by their constant appearance, are serving to obscure the matter of the source.

And here is where I think Zen as a specialized form of introspection comes into the picture.What if, suddenly, no arising of thought 無心 or the same, no arising of mentation 無念, took place?What would remain?If we think of thought, which is naturally conditioned, as being a disturbance arising from a field which prevents us from seeing this field, directly, then with the cessation of this disturbance the field would clearly be seen and this would be our mysterious source, now revealed to us.

Our all-too-human awareness is only turned to conditioned arisings whatever they might be from thoughts, emotionally toned feelings, physical pain, to the inner voice, etc.But awareness is unable to get behind the source in order to be aware of it.It can only observe what is arising from the mysterious source—not the source itself.

The only way to converge with the source itself or, the same, to become intuitively cognizant of it, is with the sudden and total elimination of all the conditioned arisings which only act as a scrim that covers the source.This is what Zen calls dunwu頓悟, that is, sudden enlightenment which is closer to the notion of intuition in the sense of immediate revelation.